Hansard debates

Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (17:56): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. Some members in this place have complained that they have received threats and other nasty messages following their support of the use and extension of emergency powers. This is of course never acceptable. Those members feel like they are the victims of violence for merely doing their job as parliamentarians. The Liberal Democrats opposed the extension of emergency powers precisely because we oppose the use of violence against Victorians. The members in this place who voted in favour of these powers voted in favour of the use of violence—the violence we have seen playing out on our screens. By voting for the emergency powers, members in this place have arrested Victorians merely because they exercise their right to assemble peacefully. These politicians have smashed in people’s doors, confiscated possessions and threatened and abused others, and they have done this because these people talked about going outside without an approved reason. These members sent enforcement officers to break into a pregnant mother’s home and to haul her off in handcuffs in front of her children because she talked about meeting up with other people outside.

Violence is still violence even when it flows from a vote cast in Parliament. Zoe Buhler did not bring her arrest on herself. The people who arrested Zoe are not just the police who put the cuffs on her. They are the members in this place that ordered it. The members of the Labor Party arrested her, Andy Meddick arrested her, Fiona Patten arrested her and Samantha Ratnam arrested her. To these politicians, I remind you: you arrested her every bit as much as the officers at the scene did. The violence of her arrest is violence that you have perpetrated. Every single time we pass a law in this place we put people under the threat of violence, the threat of having their heads stomped. I ask these politicians to reflect on how the threats and insults they have received have made them feel. I further ask them to reflect on the fact that they have done much more than merely threaten violence. I call on the minister to end this political violence when instructing Victoria Police not to arrest people for exercising their natural rights.

Following matters incorporated pursuant to order of Council earlier this day: